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One can avail oneself on legit trainers who run FOF classes (after they think you have your shit together). Realistic exercises have folks shooting back at you with various things to go OUCH! Nothing like a run (I mentioned this elsewhere) where you have to peel a t-shirt off your back has, surprisingly, the close in airsoft gun broke the skin and you bled - because I learned a lesson about running through a door.

Also your wife yells at your for being a stupid old man for coming home with bruises and scabes and aches and pains. Wear a contraption on your hand and forearm because you broke some blood vessels in your hand in 'realistic' knife class. Now, I'm not comparing my fat old self to those brave folks who do this stuff for real. However, if you want some realism - that's how it goes.

In TX - my IDPA group (sorry for the IDPA haters - but it was my speed), had law enforcement - local and state - aeveral SWAT team, Federal officers, military who were in the area. Guess they were fooled into thinking it was a good thing to shoot matches. Handguns and carbines.

Last, my idea of actually seeing a competition screw up in the real world videos - oh, it can't be done as statistically, blah, blah. That's not really an argument if you are implying some kind of averaging look. One can look for a critical incident. Newhall wasn't. North Hollywood was a one off - not statistically relevant. Anyway, that's not how statistics work if you are implying significance testing.

And screw appendix carry as an objection - you can in some venues. Also, while some think it is the end all and be all of carry - guess what - many, many folks don't do that.

"BJJ is sort of like nonconsensual yoga""You don’t really graduate from certain problems or certain things… like you always have to work on trigger control and pulling the trigger straight. " --Ben Stoeger 1/24/2018

I’m learning some things about competition here. I didn’t realize you can’t draw from appendix??? And one or more of them make you look down at your feet before you start?

I have almost no competition experience as I said in my original post but both of those are pretty off putting to me. So then I either have to practice with my holster in a position I never carry it in order to “win” which is a training scar if I wind up training that “wrong”position enough that I instinctively go there in real life. Or, I never train the draw from the competition holster spot and I’m doomed to lose because everyone else there will have spent time practicing from the OWB 5 o clock or whatever is allowed.

If I go in knowing I’m doomed to lose, then there’s no stress because I know I can’t win so what’s the point is being stressed when I lose, and that makes the whole things a lot less useful for stress inoculation.

My assumption here could be way wrong though, maybe it won’t add much time to my draw if I draw from a position I never practice from. So maybe I’m not as big disadvantaged as I make it out to sound. It it’s some some disadvantage right? Even if it’s 0.25 to 0.5 second and that’s the difference between first and middle rank probably?

Also it’s off putting because the coordinators are explicitly saying “we are afraid you’ll shoot yourself so no AIWB” or maybe they’re saying “we are an organization of old fuddy duddies who carry at 5 o’clock and AIWB would be faster than us if we allowed it so screw you it’s banned so we aren’t at a disadvantage and we can outcompete you because ALL of our practice works for both for real life and for competition is the same draw so we get the advantage over you whippersnappers not yet collecting social security who carry appendix”

Is there really no competition that lets you draw from AIWB and make it actually closer to real life? Heck, there should even be a MUC stage beforehand that you have to go through before shooting. Not necessarily timed because it’s subjective but looking down at my feet for one minute seems goofy whereas having a stage actor ask you for bus fare for the 30 seconds leading up to the beep is actually something that might happen in real life.

Again I’m not pooping on competition because I really only did it once or twice maybe 20 years ago, but the few things I’m hearing here sound silly and make me less excited to try.

Late to the conversation, but I'd like to translate your thoughts a little bit and respond to that. If I misinterpret anything, that's not my intent.

-You want to have a game that makes you a better shooter in a specific context.-

I kind of thought the same way at one point. But what I really needed was to be a better technical shooter, and learn to apply my own context.

Training scars/glitches

I try to balance some habits from competition with dry practice. One major possible training scar I foresee is that the gun goes bang every time it comes out of the holster. I try to balance with at least as many draws where my finger stays in register. I have recently been trying to beat the habit of going back to the trigger immediately after a reload out of me.

I suspect shooting multiple disciplines might be a helpful way to force yourself to apply context (rules) to what your shooting.

I only understand Boyd enough to know that I don't understand him, but it seems to me that competition only helps with the "A" part of the loop. That echoes what ewickander said above about being a better technical shooter.

As someone who has spent a fair amount of time intentionally shooting matches (local, state, regional, national and world) using my actual carry gear and testing my "tactical" training skills vs match specific training skills (and doing it at least somewhat successfully), I would say that in my opinion the biggest bad habit is not seeking and using cover appropriately and standing still engaging multiple targets without moving.

I see a lot of people do what I refer to as "standing near something vs actually using cover". When I teach use of cover I talk about this in depth and many of the folks that do it are simply doing what they learned in match shooting. I keep saying I'm going to get a "American Gladiators" style tennis ball launcher to fire up range to force people to use cover but alas that is just a dream so far..... Point is that since there is no incoming fire to drive you to get BEHIND something then people tend to expose far more of themselves than they really would want to if the penalty for exposed body parts was a GSW (gun shot wound for those not tracking) .

The down side to using cover "correctly" in a match is it has a negative effect on your time. About 5 years ago (circa 2015?) at a regional IDPA match in Knoxville one of the stage ROs was an instructor from Storm Mountain (IIRC) and after I shot his stage he approached me and said "That was absolutely awesome use of cover" to which I smiled and replied ..."So what you are really telling me is that I shot it way too slow?" He got a big laugh out of that but I appreciated what he said and that he could see the difference in what I was doing vs "the gamers". I still shot it fairly quickly (IIRC I think I finished 2nd or 3rd in Master SSP in that match) but giving the target a view of only eyeball and gun muzzle is always going to be slower than the guys who are giving the target a view of half their upper body. And I can also tell you first hand that doing Southnarc's Armed Movement in Structures class where you are constantly trying to keep from getting shot by hidden opponents is an AWESOME class but doing that class the week before a big match is NOT a great tune up for blowing through stages at match speed at a national level IDPA match..... There is a difference between moving at match speed and moving at the speed of life. Cardboard opponents don't make you pay for your poor use of cover..... and using cover like you might actually get shot slows down your movement through the match stages....

The other match "bad habit" I see is people tend to want to stand and plant and shoot it out like "Rock'emSock'em Robots with bullets " especially against multiple targets. This is less than optimal when those targets are 5 yards away and THEY start the fight going for their guns and shooting at you. If you don't have the initiative (you did not get "off sides" and start before your opponents knew the fight was starting) and you are not already behind cover , then your feet need to be moving.... but again cardboard assailants never killed anyone so people form a skewed view of what movement to keep from getting shot looks like versus simply moving away from one target array to the next target array.

If we keep in mind that shooting matches is not "training" ....(unless you are in fact training specifically to shoot matches which is an actual skill unto itself)...and we view it instead as a test of our gunhandling and marksmanship skills under the stress of a timer and not wanting to crash and burn in front of your peers, then there is a lot to be gained as far as operating the gun under circumstances we did not write the script for and as a form of stress inoculation and confidence building. As mentioned earlier in this thread , match shooting helps hone your technical shooting skill but YOU have to apply it appropriately to YOUR real world context. But if your ONLY "training " is shooting matches then that can create some training scars that hopefully never lead to real scars.....

As someone who has spent a fair amount of time intentionally shooting matches (local, state, regional, national and world) using my actual carry gear and testing my "tactical" training skills vs match specific training skills (and doing it at least somewhat successfully), I would say that in my opinion the biggest bad habit is not seeking and using cover appropriately and standing still engaging multiple targets without moving............

........As mentioned earlier in this thread , match shooting helps hone your technical shooting skill but YOU have to apply it appropriately to YOUR real world context. But if your ONLY "training " is shooting matches then that can create some training scars that hopefully never lead to real scars.....